What is the best time to schedule posts

This article explains how best times are calculated and how to use the heatmap to choose stronger publishing slots.

How to identify the best times to post

Discover when sharing content on Facebook, Instagram (available when connected through Facebook), TikTok, X, LinkedIn, and YouTube is most effective.

Go to the Planning section after connecting your social networks. Then click Best times at the top right. After choosing the platform you want to analyze, you will see different color shades. A darker shade means a better time to post.

How to read the heatmap

• Each column is a day of the week.

• Each row is a time slot.

• The darker the cell, the better the performance.

This helps you spot your best posting times at a glance.

💡 You can also enable the percentage view for a more detailed view of how activity is distributed throughout the day.

How this data is generated

• Best times may take up to 7 days to appear after connecting your account, depending on the platform. There is no stored history, so past and future weeks show the same best times because only the most recent data is used for each day.

Here is how the data is generated for each network:

Instagram: two ways to get your best times

For Instagram, there are two possible ways to get this data. Connecting through Facebook is recommended whenever possible for more accurate and personalized results.

• Option 1: Connected through Facebook
  If your professional Instagram account is connected to a Facebook Page, the platform uses the data Meta provides through its API. It is the same data you see in Instagram Insights and reflects your audience’s real behavior.

Your account needs at least 100 followers for Instagram to generate this data.

• Option 2: Not connected to Facebook
  If you connected Instagram using only your login credentials and did not link it to a Facebook Page, this data is not available through the API.

In that case, the platform shows an estimate based on behavioral studies of general Instagram usage. This gives you a broad view of the best times to post, but it is not tailored to your account.

Facebook

Even though Meta officially stopped supporting best times in its API on September 24, 2024, the platform still shows best times.

• If your account was connected before that date, historical data is still used. Facebook behavior patterns have not changed much in recent years, so past data is still a useful personalized reference.

• If you connected your account after that date, best times are based on behavioral studies of platform usage. This gives a general view of active posting times, but it is not specific to your account.

X

Best times are calculated based on the recent activity of your community on the social network.

The analysis is based on your followers’ activity during the last week.

To display best times, the following is required:

• You must have at least 300 active followers, meaning followers who posted recently on X.

• That activity must have happened within the last 7 days.

Simply having more than 300 followers is not enough. If only part of them generated recent activity, best times cannot be calculated or displayed.

Best times are calculated by analyzing the time slots when your followers post, not your own posts.

TikTok

For TikTok, available information depends on the account type:

• Business accounts: the platform uses data from TikTok’s API. This information is specific to your account and reflects when your audience was most active. TikTok requires at least 100 followers to generate these personalized best times.

• Personal accounts: TikTok does not provide detailed metrics through the API for personal accounts. In these cases, best times are based on behavioral studies of platform usage patterns. This serves as general guidance, not personalized audience data.

LinkedIn and YouTube

These platforms do not provide account-specific data, so the platform uses behavior studies to give you a general idea of the best times to post.

How this data is interpreted

The platform identifies the times of day with the highest social media activity. When more activity happens, more people are online, which increases the chance that your posts will reach a larger audience.

The best times are not based only on your active followers. They are based on the time slots with the highest activity on each social network.

💡 Remember that you can enable the percentage view for a more accurate representation of how activity is distributed throughout the day.

Why does it look different from Instagram's chart?

If you chose the recommended Instagram connection method through Facebook, the data comes directly from Meta’s API. It is the same data available in your professional Insights.

The difference is in how it is displayed. The platform uses a heatmap instead of bars to make the data easier to interpret.

• Darker cells mean higher activity or better performance.

• Lighter cells show lower impact.

This makes it easier to spot your peak hours without comparing bar heights.

Best times are not displayed

If your accounts meet the follower requirements but best times are not displayed, open the platform in an incognito browser window.

If best times appear in incognito mode, a browser extension or ad blocker is likely interfering. Disabling it should make the content visible. Antivirus software can also block this content.

• TikTok: To access TikTok’s best times, they must also be visible in your TikTok professional account analytics. Check by following these steps:

1. Go to your profile, select the three lines in the upper-right corner, and open Creator Tools.

2. Select Analytics or Statistics.

3. Look for best times.

4. In the Audience section, check when your followers are most active.